Chapter Text
The wind, the skies, the exhilaration rushing through his skin, his blood pulsating within his veins. The whirring of blades, spotlights hounding his every move, for he is the star of the stage, the main lead of his very own story. The reverberating cheers, the roaring of his name, the sirens of glittering red, and the enraged yell of a一
“Capture him! Don’t let him escape!”
Kaito grinned, letting out a chuckle. The inspector really never changed, and his voice never lost its volume. Even though he still uses a megaphone, somehow the man’s own voice managed to drown it. It amazed him how the inspector rarely got a hoarse throat from all that shouting. Maybe he should ask Aoko what kind of drink her dad is drinking to prevent straining his vocal cords, because altering his own voice could really take a great deal out of his vocal cords.
Going back to the heist, he suppose this chase had gone long enough, he still has a gem to check after all.
Glancing down at the numerous vehicles trailing his back, he glided past a building, blocking the police’s sight of him before deploying a dummy to soar through the sky in his place, luring his chasers away from him. Once that was taken care of, he landed on a nearby rooftop to change out his white attire to black, blending in with his surroundings.
Once the police were out of sight, he made his way back to the museum where the real gem is still sitting nicely in its case, at which a certain little shrunken detective was waiting for him as well.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, KID,” the pseudo child once said to him a month ago when they were in the Kudou manor, peacefully sipping tea on a cloudy, mellow morning. “Even if I am helping you find Pandora, I won’t be helping you with your heist, you do that on your own,” he ground out, sternly. “I will only help you with checking the gem, that’s it.”
Kaito had been disappointed that the detective didn't want to participate in the heist, he can only do so much with magic tricks. Real magic on the other hand, the possibilities were endless!
But he did brighten up when the detective added, “and I will still be the KID killer.”
He shuddered at those words with challenging blue orbs gazing up at him, setting his adrenaline on fire. He vividly remembered the soccer ball the detective sent in his way during today’s heist, nearly colliding into his back. If he had been a second too late, the impact would have broken the poles of his hang glider, destroying his only means of escape. And the detective had not even used an ounce of his magic.
He can’t wait to see the detective’s magic in action though, it had been a month since he last saw it. Feeling excited, he quickened his pace.
“Took you long enough,” is what the detective greeted him with when he arrived in the deserted museum. The boy was standing ten metres away from the casing, with his arms crossed and wearing an unenthusiastic expression.
Kaito blinked at him, then at the gem, then back at the little detective. “Are we going to check the gem…” He gestured at the amount of distance between them and the target. “Here?”
The detective simply rolled his eyes at him, before extending a hand towards him. Kaito stared at the tiny hand, confused.
“Do you have a water bottle?” He asked.
“Oh, yeah, wait.” He whipped out a small water bottle out of his sleeve, the detective quirked an unimpressed eyebrow at the sleight of hand. “I only have a small one though,” he said, eagerly handing the boy the requested item.
“It’s enough,” the detective assured him, opening the cap, and as though it had the mind of its own, the water vamoosed out of the bottle and to the direction towards the gem. The water lifted the glass case, carefully setting it down onto the floor, then it enveloped the gem, forming a globe.
“Why don’t you just levitate it or use telekinesis?” Kaito inquired curiously, remembering the time where the detective used telekinesis to prepare their tea. As he witnessed the spectacle, he thought real magic was truly astonishing.
“Telekinesis uses the mind to control objects,” the detective explained. “While I don’t need to use my mind to control water. Since I’m a blue magic sorcerer, it’ll just obey me, so it’s easier.” Then he paused, a tinge of embarrassment. “And I’m not quite used to using psychic abilities, I rarely use magic even. I mean, telekinesis is easy, I just can’t quite control it from a far distance.”
“I see.”
The gem, captured in an aqueous enclosure, gradually ascending towards the grand circular window, with the full moon on rise. The gem caught the glimmer of the moon, and Kaito caught his breath一
It twinkles, yet no signs of red.
“I guess this is not it,” the detective sighed, lowering the gem and placing it in its holder, and returning the glass case to its rightful place. “What a waste of time and effort just to check this little thing, and it’s not even our objective.”
“Aww, don’t see it that way, Meitantei,” Kaito chided in, stepping forward. “Even if it’s not the gem we’re aftering, at least we had fun, right? And don’t you say anything otherwise! I know you enjoy my heists, Meitantei, or else you wouldn’t have kept smiling all the time.” Per se, it was more of a smug smirk than a happy smile but that’s beside the point.
The detective flushed, directing a glare at him. “Only you would think terrorizing our local police is fun ,” he scoffed, turning towards the staircase. “Since we’re done, I’m going home, oh and don’t forget to turn the security cameras back on, okay? Bye.”
“Have a good night, Meitantei!” Kaito shouted after him, receiving a small wave. After doing what the detective told him to do, he then departed from the museum as well, although unlike the detective, he preferred to exit through the window as it was way more thrilling than walking through the doors. As he fell, he activated his hang glider, soaring through the sky once again.
•
Come to Agasa-hakase’s house when you’re done with school.
Kaito stared conscientiously at the neat kanji characters on his bright screen, ignoring the infuriated howls of a certain messy-haired brunette and her deadly mop, attempting to dislodge him where he was casually laying on the classroom’s ceiling. He bet the girl must have thought of throwing her mop at him, but thought against it, afraid of hitting one of her classmates or breaking one of the class lights.
“Bakaito!” She bellowed, gripping her mop like a knight with a mighty spear, ready to attack a ferocious dragon. “Come down from there!” She slammed the far end of her mop’s metal handle onto the ceramic-tiled floor, producing a clunk kind of sound.
“Nah, I think I’m fine up here,” he said absentmindedly, almost a murmur, causing the girl to further rage. He swiftly sent back an email to the detective, grinning once he was done. Okie dokie! Be there soon ;)
“Bakaito! Stop smiling like an idiot and come down!”
The house was small compared and the colors were a stark contrast compared to the mansion right next door. The building has a unique ellipsoid design with a protruded structure situated above the front door. Looks like other than the manor, this house was also another odd one out of this otherwise ordinary neighborhood.
He rang the door’s doorbell, adjusting the black cap on his head as he waited. He didn’t have to wait for long though, the door flew open a few seconds later, revealing the shrunken detective on the other side.
“Good, you’re here.” The detective smiled. “Come in, do you want some coffee?” He halted. “Or tea?” He added as an afterthought.
“Coffee’s fine,” he said nonchalantly, slipping out of his shoes and into the guest slippers. “Sorry for intruding,” he quipped, eyeing the interior for once. He had seen this house numerous times throughout his unbidden visits to the Kudou Manor, although he had only seen the exterior. “So, Meitantei, it's rare for you to be the one who contacts me first rather than the opposite.” He grinned. “What is it that you called me for?”
The detective scowled at him, placing the mug of coffee on the low table for Kaito to take, he assumed. “Remember when I told you about the tools needed to extract Pandora from it’s vessel?” At Kaito’s nod, he continued. “Well, Agasa-hakase have already finished making it.”
Kaito frowned as he sat down on the sofa, picking up his coffee. “The professor? Is he a supernatural being too then?”
The detective shook his head. “He’s not, he’s just an inventor. He's the only one outside of my family who has witnessed my magic. It was unintentional, Agasa-hakase was just visiting when I accidentally flooded the kitchen because I was having a tantrum.” The detective chuckled, remembering a fond memory. “I was still a toddler back then, I didn’t know that I could control water. Agasa-hakase was quick to understand though, and promised to keep it a secret.”
Kaito hummed in appreciation, sipping the coffee. “How about the little Ojou-san?” If he remembered correctly, the little girl was also in the same situation as the little detective, and he heard that she was a scientist. But he had yet to know if the girl was truly human and not some sort of Medusa in disguise.
“You mean Haibara? She’s like the professor, completely human. Which is why she’s not here at the moment. I convinced her to spend time with the kids, because unlike Agasa-hakase, she doesn’t know supernatural things exist.”
“I see.” Somehow, he was relieved to hear that she was no more than a human. “Are your parents also witches?”
“No, my dad is human through and through. My mom on the other hand, came from a family of witches, but she didn’t get her magic powers like I did, even the generations before. We thought that our blue magic had ceased to exist.” Then the detective plastered a big smile. “Then I came in and created fountains everywhere, causing my mom to struggle while confusing the hell out of my dad. My mom always complained how I was such a hassle to take care of back then.”
Kaito laughed into his coffee, it was amusing just to imagine that, he wished he could have seen it. Perhaps there are photo albums stashed in the library that he could, ah, borrow ?
“By the way, the professor is in the basement if you’re wondering.” The detective supplied, interrupting his planning of sneaking into the library. “He’s doing final check ups to make sure that nothing is wrong and that it is safe.”
Kaito widened his eyes. “Wait, wait, by himself? Will he be fine?!”
The detective simply rolled his eyes at him. “Idiot, he’ll be fine because he is just a normal human being. He’s making final check ups to make sure that it’s safe for me . It’s a tool to absorb paranormal energy after all, if something were to go wrong, it would’ve probably come after me to suck out all of my magic. It is what it was made for.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense.”
“Yup, so don’t worry about the professor, he’ll be alright.”
Kaito nodded reluctantly but decided to trust the detective. The boy was someone who cared more about other people’s lives than his own after all, and yet he doesn’t seem to worry. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and refused the detective when he offered more of the beverage. “Anyway, how can the professor create something like that? I know he’s a genius and all but how?”
The detective blinked at him, twice, scratching the back of his head. “Ah, after he discovered my abilities, we had a bit of an unpleasant warning from the government一 I mean the Ministry of the supernaturals.” He awkwardly chortled. “And somehow, Agasa-hakase got in contact with some of the dwarves there and became close friends. They became drinking buddies and even shared ideas between each other. Luckily for us, one of the dwarves was kind enough to lend us the blueprints of the device. We don’t need to use magic to make it, in fact, that would be horrible. So using normal equipment is fine, all we had to do was to search for the items to make it.”
That sort of sounded like a quest in one of those RPG games, Kaito thought merrily, like a player hunting down items to deliver to an NPC so they could create a unique weapon for the player to use. “Is that why you haven’t been replying to my emails?” Kaito half-heartedly accused. “You’re busy gathering materials?”
“Yes.” The detective furrowed his brows. “Don’t make it sound like I’m ignoring you on purpose, I tried to reply as much as I can.”
“And yet I only receive one or two messages each week.” He sniffed dramatically, receiving an apathetic look from the other.
“Shut up.”
He snickered at the detective’s disgruntled look, leaning back against the backrest. “But why made it though?” He queried quizzically. “Why not just borrow some of the stuff?”
“To do that, you need the government’s permission. To have their permission, you need a valid reason. To give a valid reason, you need to tell them the truth, and lies won’t work because they have a lie detector.” The detective narrowed his eyes at him, and he shut his mouth with an audible click. “And besides, they probably won’t ever allow it, because we’re not just looking for Pandora to keep it from the wrong hands, we’re also using it as bait for that black organization of yours. The government wants nothing to do with humans.”
“I can see that,” Kaito chided unhelpfully.
“And also I would have needed to reveal who I really am,” the detective carried on. “Like the rest of the world, they also think I’m either dead or gone missing, and I want it to stay that way. The less people know, the less words would spread around.”
Kaito smiled sympathetically at the detective. He understood him, after all he was the same as well, surrounded by lies with the truth hidden within the walls of thorns. “By the way, Meitantei, I’ve always wondered, why did you want to help me? You seemed to have a handful already with your black organization, won’t this just slow you down?”
The detective shrugged. “No reason in particular, I just want to help that’s all. It’s the same for you too, right? Considering you’ve always helped me a bunch of times even though I’m your nemesis.” He tenderly smiled, soft and genuine, it was an unfamiliar expression to him that he involuntarily sucked in his breath. “Besides, you don’t need a reason to want to help someone, right?”
Ba-dumb!
Wait, what?
“Yo!” A voice interjected, compelling both him and the detective to turn their heads towards an elderly man poking his head out of a door. “Shinichi! The stone is not going berserk anymore! It’s safe for you to come down now,” he announced, giving them a thumbs up.
“Okay, hakase!” The detective shouted after him, before glancing back at him again. “Shall we go?”
•
“This…” he trailed off, eyeing the tool capable of seizing Pandora. “This is the device?”
It was much smaller than he originally thought, and it has a similar design to that of a grappling hook except it has a body of a metal pole with an empty plastic jar at the bottom.
“Indeed it is!” The professor chirped, he seemed to be proud of himself with his chest puffed out in pride. “It’s called the Binder,” he said, lifting the device into their eye level and opening a portion of the metal pole, baring a purple-like-amethyst stone inside, surrounded in a crystallized barrier. “This stone is called the Purify Gem, at least, that’s the Japanese version of it. It can absorbed all magical energy一 otherwise known as mana in its surroundings. This stone will do all the work for us, so all we need to do is to activate the device.”
“That stone is the only thing that I had a hard time finding,” the detective fumed, glaring at the stone. “It took me the whole month trying to find it, and I still had school to go to! It was frustrating.”
“Thank you for all of your hard work, Meitantei.” Kaito smiled, and it turned even wider when the little detective blushed, turning his back on him in embarrassment. Satisfied at the adorable reaction, he went back to the professor. “So, it’s pretty much complete then?”
A clearing of a throat. “Not exactly,” the detective said. “We still need one more thing to be able to fully control the stone. If we just activate it as it is, the stone would just absorb everything and we won’t even know if it would actually target our objective.”
“Okay, so you mean something like an aimer, what is it?”
The professor and the detective glanced at each other, before both sighed in exasperation.
“That’s the thing, we don’t know. Unfortunately, it wasn’t mentioned in the blueprints and Agasa-hakase’s dwarf friends were not so keen on telling him.” Then the detective nervously smiled. “So this is the main reason why I actually called you here.”
“What?” Kaito frowned. “You want me to look for this thing?”
“Uh, no.” The detective looked side to side, his fingers fidgeting, hesitant. “What I want you to do is to disguise yourself as Kudou Shinichi and go to the witches gathering to gather information.” He ended with a sheepish broad smile.
“...What?”